I remember his “role” as my neighbor in the run-down apartment building a block and a half down the street from me. It’s now the location of the Los Feliz branch of the L.A. public library.
I remember Jim Carrey as the alcoholic older brother in the tv movie “Doing Time on Maple Drive.” Probably why I’ve had little tolerance for his broad comedic work.
A likewise fresh-faced Tim Robbins played Maverick’s replacement RIO in “Top Gun.” Y’know, after Goose dies, Mav gets Cougar’s old RIO…that’s Robbins. IIRC, he only has a line or two–and those are possibly off-camera and definitely behind an oxygen mask, but you can see him all towering over Tom Cruise on the carrier at the end.
Tom Bergeron used to be a disk jockey on the Portsmouth NH radio station WHEB back then in the '80s they called themselves “The Star Station” and Bergeron’s show was “Your basic Tom Bergeron type broadcast”
He even had a locally infamous song called “Marty Feldman Eyes” it was a song about coffee, sung to the tune of “Bette Davis Eyes”
I remember Tia Carrere playing a guest spot as a model or something on an episode of Married…With Children, playing as Kelly’s chief rival, even back then Tia made me feel kinda’ funny, like when we used to climb the rope in gym class, Schwing!
The Courtship of Eddie’s Father. Eddie (Brandon Cruz, and whatever happened to him? I say him in a small role as the love interest’s younger brother in The One and Only with Henry Winkler, but nothing since then) had a bit of a crush on a button-nosed tomboy played by a pre-Freaky Friday Jodie Foster.
Also pre-Taxi Driver.
Um…no? Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986) - IMDb Check out the 5th role listed.
I remember seeing Bette Midler perform in the Continental Baths (a NYC gay bathhouse) in the early 70s . . . accompanied by Barry Manilow.
And I saw Bernadette Peters sing “Raining in My Heart” in *Dames at Sea, *in 1968.
I think Dr Demento made it famous. I at least remember the title, and regretting it weren’t my own.
Brandon Cruz, for a while, replaced Jello Biafra in the Dead Kennedys
They did a tv show of Ferris Bueller. That’s what Planetcory is referencing.
And, I suspect that, unlike you, I have lusted after her for years. 
(Is a wink appropriate here? Would a 
work better, without the implied come-on? Netiquette is completely beyond me. :D)
Oh, yeah, one more I should’ve mentioned in my OP: Alanis Morissette. I couldn’t believe that singer was the same person who played “the girl whom all the guys do stupid things to attract” role who blamed Adam (I believe) for getting slimed.
Some Aussies - I remember Simon Baker on E Street (when he was Simon Denny), Eric Bana on Full Frontal, and Heath Ledger on a short-lived tv soap about athletes called Sweat.
I believe that Jason Alexander was also in Dr. Pepper commercial and Meg Ryan was in a commercial, as well. Maybe for tootpaste?
I remember when Siskel & Ebert was just on Chicago PBS.
I remember John Bunnell on an episode of Cops.
Usually I don’t make these connections when someone gets famous later, but I guess I saw Dana Carvey in Halloween II and George Wendt in My Bodyguard.
Oh, and I remember Calista Flockhart in an episode of Life Stories: Families In Crisis or some such thing where she plays a bulemic who for some reason threw up in jars and stashed them in her closet. I’m still traumatized by that.
Never mind. Can’t correct this within the 5 minute window.
Yeah, but did anyone watch it? Parker Lewis Can’t Lose slaughtered it. They even did a joke about Ferris spying on Parker to see how the show is supposed to be done.*
This is what I meant to post in the previous post. Unfortunately, I quoted the wrong poster and couldn’t correct it in the time alloted.
Before CSI: Miami, but after Firefly, Zac was a “corpse of the week” on ER, he had been shot and was dropped off in the ambulance bay by some people who didn’t stick around to see what happened to him next. Sadly, it was nothing good. He’s said that to his mortification, his high school English teacher showed a tape of Zac’s few speaking lines to every single class the day after the episode aired.
I wonder how many people remember Matt Damon in “Mystic Pizza” with Julia Roberts and Lili Taylor? Or Brad Pitt’s walkthrough extra appearance in a party scene in “Less than Zero” with Andrew McCarthy and Robert Downey, Jr.
There was also a horrible movie called “Moving Violations” that starred Sally Kellerman, the “Where’s the Beef” lady and a bunch of people’s less talented sibings: Jennifer (sister of Meg, much more famous at the time) Tilly, John (brother of Bill) Murray and James (brother of Stacy) Keach. There was a blink and you’ll miss it scene featuring future Oscar nominee and awesome actor Don Cheadle as a fast food worker.
To me, Jim Carrey will always be “Mark, the virgin with a vampire problem” (Once Bitten). I honestly can’t think of anything else he’s done that I actually enjoyed. Once Bitten, however, will always be one of my favorites.
Damn - all the good ones have been taken. I do remember Morgan Freeman from his Easy Reader days and I was a Greg Kinnear fan back when he hosted Talk Soup.
George Clooney was on Sisters with Sela Ward. IIRC his character got killed off and shortly thereafter he turned up on ER.
Not a remembrance but a recent sighting: Keira Knightly has a brief uncredited appearance in Thunderpants as a music student - she doesn’t have a line but is standing behind someone who does. Bend It Like Beckham came out the same year.
The Patridge Family had a very young Jodie Foster.
Facts of Life had a young MacKenzie Astin.
Friends had a very young Dakota Fanning.
Roseanne had a young Joseph Gordon-Levett.
Ryan’s Hope had Kate Mulgrew (long before she went into space) and a very young Yasmin Bleeth as mother-and-daughter Mary Ryan Fenelli and Ryan Fenelli.